Apple is facing fresh demands from the UK government to create a backdoor to its encryption tool for UK users, it has been reported.

The newest notice – which the Home Office has not commented on – differs from previous orders to Apple to create a backdoor to its end-to-end encrypted cloud for the UK government. Instead of ordering Apple to create a back door for all users across the globe, the back door order will only be for UK citizens using service.

This follows from the controversial technical capability notice first issued by the Home Office in September to the US tech giant, which was met with outrage from privacy advocates and many US lawmakers.

Instead of complying with the order, Apple pulled its Advanced Data Protection (ADP) tool from the UK market, taking away end-to-end encryption for cloud data for millions of UK users which overall, puts their data more at risk. Apple said that privacy was paramount to its business and it would never compromise this or create a backdoor to its encryption.

In August, US director of national intelligence Tulsi Gabbard said that the Home Office had backed down from its demand, which would have seen Apple compromise encryption protection from all users, including US citizens.

The Home Office, however, continues to neither confirm or deny the order ever existed, as is protocol for a technical notice of this manner. Apple has, however, filed a legal suit against the Home Office over the order.

Following Gabbard’s post, the Home Office did not confirm it had taken back the order, but the new amendment, first reported by The Financial Times, could be interpreted as a middle ground to not stoke tensions between the UK and US.

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Still, it is unlikely Apple with bow down to the Home Office’s order, as it stated: “As we have said many times before, we have never built a backdoor or master key to any of our products or services, and we never will.

“We are gravely disappointed that the protections provided by ADP will not be available to our customers in the UK, given the continuing rise of data breaches and other threats to customer privacy.”

Further, making a backdoor just for UK citizens would, technically, compromise the entire encryption tool, eroding the main ethos of encryption and data privacy.

It also remains unclear how Apple will discern between UK citizens and other users – for instance, how will Apple protect the encryption of US citizens residing in the UK, or vice-versa.